“Of course Kinski has been very close to me,” Herzog said. “So close, I had to make a film, not so much about him, but about our monstrous struggles and our deep, deep friendship and distrust. Which sounds like a contradiction, but it’s not.”

For new footage, Herzog returned to the scene of the crime: Peruvian Amazon locations for “Aguirre” and “Fitzcarraldo,” where director and star engaged in shouting matches that degenerated into threats of bodily harm.

Kinski’s memoir, which cast the author as a cross between Oliver Twist and a sex-crazed Casanova, won’t be consulted. “Much of it is fantasy,” Herzog said.

The pages of expletives heaped on the helmer were the result of Kinski-Herzog skull sessions. “He said, ‘What else can I say bad about you? C’mon help me. I have to sell this book. If I write that we like each other in a single paragraph, nobody would be interested.’ We had a couple of hearty laughs over it.”